What a Wonderful World
by A Catholic Girl
Summary: Over the course of his life, Neville learns what makes life good, and what exactly makes the world wonderful. Response to the Life Challenge.


_-World-_

He has no memory of this, but Gran told him about it, and he believes what Gran says. When he was a baby, and resisted against his mother when it was time for him to nap, Alice would sing to him. She'd sing the exact same tune every time Neville was being feisty, and she'd succeed in singing him to sleep every single time.

Gran played the recurring song for him once. He still remembers the lyrics as clear as day…

_I see trees of green, red roses too.  
I see them bloom, for me and you.  
And I think to myself...what a wonderful world…_

Neville always believes the world is wonderful. Time on Earth is sacred, that's quite obvious. As a little boy, he promises to himself that he'll never hate the world, no matter what.

The world is his, and he can do whatever he likes in it, over the course of his time here…

_-Family-_

Gran took him to Diagon Alley when he was a little boy, exactly a week before Christmas. Neville was unaware that she was seeking out to buy a final gift for him, even when they were inside a shop, and she planted him by the front window, and disappeared behind the many rows of shelves.

He was only seven at the time, and had a short attention span. He remembers looking out of the shop window to find something to entertain himself, and seeing a large group of people pass by. The group members all bore the same fiery red hair, and there were two parents, each tugging along with them a child – there were four in total. Two of the children were around nine, and Neville had guessed that they were twins. The other two, another boy and a girl, appeared as if they were about Neville's age or younger.

Neville watched the family with rapt, and perhaps a pint of jealousy. He saw the four children point out holiday shop displays with wide eyes and happy shrieks, and the mother and father share a knowing look with each other.

Neville doesn't have that. He doesn't have laughter, or siblings, or warmth. Gran might spoil him rotten with gifts, but all he really wants for Christmas is a true family.

_-Grief-_

It's Mum's birthday, and Gran takes him to St. Mungo's to visit his parents. He is nine years old.

He carries a wrapped gift in one hand, and a picture he drew for her in the other as Gran leads him down the all too familiar hallway to Frank and Alice's room. The Healers who pass by know Neville by name, and they smile down at him and stop to shake Gran's hand and chat with her. Eventually, they part with the Healers, and Gran gently pushes him into the correct room.

Mum and Dad's faces are blank and sagging, as they usually are, and even when Gran loudly announces their presence, their expressions remain nonresponsive. Neville hovers behind his grandmother as she rattles on in a one-sided conversation. He doesn't like approaching his parents with Gran there.

As if hearing his thoughts, Gran leaves the room in search of a hot beverage, and Neville sits quietly on the chair placed between his parents' beds. He turns to his mother first, and puts her gift and his drawing in her lap.

"Happy birthday, Mum – I love you." Neville leans forward and kisses her pale cheek. "I made you a picture. It's of my new toad, Trevor. He doesn't do much, but I'm going to teach him some tricks soon."

He turns to Frank next.

"Hi, Dad. Your birthday's coming up soon, I remember. Do you want a picture too? I can draw pretty well…"

Gran bustles back in, a cup of tea in tow. Resting a hand on her grandson's shoulder, she tightens her hold on him, as if she's afraid for Neville. Her grandson is so meek when seeing them, but yet, he has learned to hide it, and ignore his grief.

Neville looks up at her, smiling, but sadness is evident underneath. He smiles like an old man, full of melancholy and sorrow.

He deserves something better.

_-School-_

Before Hogwarts, he was a nobody. People passed him, unaware of Neville's presence. He liked this nonentity, and liked it when no one stared at him.

But at Hogwarts, he is given a title without noticing it at first. He is a recently-turned eleven-year-old when he is called up to the three-legged stool placed in front of the entire Great Hall. He scurries up, nearly tripping over his own feet in the process. Just as he turns away from the teachers' table to sit on the stool, he sees the professors' wide eyes and hears distant whispering. He has been branded as Frank and Alice's poor, lonely son at first sight.

The Sorting Hat slips over his eyes, and the Hat murmurs incoherent words. It shouts out, "GRYFFINDOR!"

As he takes off the Hat and rushes down to his House table, he spots out of the corner of his eye the teachers conversing, some nodding approvingly, others looking misty-eyed. Confused, he shrugs it off. He does not know about the true reality and horror of his parents' incident yet, he is but a schoolchild…

_-Friend-_

Great-Uncle Algie once joked that Neville had so little experience in socializing that he'd welcome any new friend that'd approach him in school. But then again, Algie never knew him very well.

By fourth year, he doesn't know who to call a friend, and who to call only an acquaintance. He earns platonic smiles from fellow Gryffindor students, but smiles are never like friendships, are they?

Neville and Hannah Abbott are paired together for a Herbology assignment, and talk rather glumly about the upcoming Yule Ball. Neither has a date yet, and if he was capable of mustering enough courage, he would have asked her to go with him, out of pity and the embarrassment of still being available for the Ball.

But his courage shrinks, and the next time he sees her, Hannah has agreed to go with Justin Finch-Fletchley, and Neville has asked Ginny Weasley.

Neville doesn't know why, but the night of the Ball, he finds his eyes returning to where Hannah is, and she smiles at him kindly every time.

In their next Herbology class, Hannah comes to his side, and asks if he'd like to join her and her chums at Hogsmeade next weekend. Neville says yes, and his smile stayed bright and big for at least the whole week.

Hannah is a friend; he knows that when she smiles up at him over the plants in Herbology, and when she laughs at his unintended jokes. Someone who takes the time to smile and laugh is a friend.

_-Romance-_

He never tried at a romantic relationship with Hannah until after the war. Neville figured that if they were together during wartime, it'd just be more painful if one of them was injured or killed in a Battle.

Neville loses contact with her after school, and it's not until the one-year anniversary of the Final Battle that he meets her again, at the Hog's Head, working for Aberforth Dumbledore to pay off her apartment rent. He asks her out for an evening in Diagon Alley, and Hannah says yes, face burning a pleasant red color.

It is his first time to Diagon Alley without Gran nearby, and he would have felt old and uneasy if it weren't for Hannah's presence. She brings out the child in him – she laughs fondly at the magical creatures displayed in a shop window, and smiles at him over her sundae at Florean Fortescue's Ice Cream Parlor. At the end of the day, when they're sipping drinks at the Leaky Cauldron, they share their deepest secrets with each other.

It wasn't the usual romantic activities a couple would do. But when that final kiss took place that evening, Neville knew it. Hannah was the one.

_-Birth-_

To him, three events stuck out in his lifetime – school, marriage, and then childbirth. As he grew older, he learned that there were many more events to stick out, but those three remained dominant. He and Hannah were married in 2002, and the conceiving of their first child came in early 2005. Throughout the nine months of his wife's pregnancy, Neville feared the day of delivery and fretted about the blood and fluid involved in the process.

But when Alice Pomona came on August 16th, 2005, his worries were shed as his daughter slipped into the world. Human birth was a miracle, a natural wonder. He remembers cuddling his Alice to no end, and kissing her, and calling her a daddy's girl. Alice is the rebellious one, always curious for an answer, and complaining if she didn't get one.

His wonder didn't even wear off when Frank Neville arrived on February 2nd, 2008. A boy's birth was completely different than a girl's, but contained the same amazement as any birth in general. Frank is a daddy's boy, and likes to hug, no matter what.

The final Longbottom birth was in 2011, with Eleanor Susan entering the world. Eleanor is the quiet one, wailing only as she stumbled into life. But her muteness doesn't stop Neville from loving her to death immediately. As Eleanor is taken away to be cleaned and swaddled, Neville turns to his exhausted wife, a sad look on his face.

"Can't we have another?"

_-Hatred-_

Alice is six years old when she marches up to her father determinedly. "I hate that James Potter, Daddy. He's always stealing my things from me."

Neville glances up from testing a Mandrake, and sees Alice's cross face and her hands placed pointedly on her hips. He doesn't like the word hate. It's too strong for use, especially for Alice to say it.

Neville knows hate. Hate was his feelings towards Bellatrix Lestrange, and Voldemort, and every single Death Eater. Those souls practically _asked_ to be hated. He will always loathe them, for what they did to his parents, his friends, and for the scar they left on his life.

But Alice never faced those mortifying souls. She does not know hate, and Neville prays fervently that she never will.

He takes his daughter by the hand, and opens his mouth to speak.

"You don't hate James, Ally. Never say that you hate someone…you don't know what it's like to hate."

_-Death-_

Death. That's the reason he was given the job of Herbology professor at Hogwarts. Pomona Sprout passed away, and Neville was contacted for her position.

He always liked Professor Sprout. She'd tell him that he was perfectly capable of teaching her class.

But now that his time to teach has arrived, he doesn't want to. It doesn't seem the same to be in the school greenhouses without Sprout lecturing about Devil's Snare and without Neville with his grass-stained smock and his note taking frenzies.

But he teaches anyway, telling the students everything Sprout taught him. Even in death, a person should live in legacy.

_-Life-_

He did as his mother would do, singing to his children her song when they'd refuse to lie down for a nap.

_I see trees of green, red roses too.  
I see them bloom, for me and you.  
And I think to myself...what a wonderful world…_

"Life is good," Neville tells his three little ones. "Don't throw it away."

What he says is the truth. The world will seem dark at times, but never will the darkness destroy love, laughter, and family. The simplest things are the most important. They are what makes life good, and what makes it all a wonderful world.

* * *

_A/N: The song mentioned in the first and last segments, and the song that is the title of this, is 'What a Wonderful World', by Louis Armstrong, and it's one of my favorite songs ever. Please look it up, it's so lovely. _

_And do review, if you read this! Thank you so much!_


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